UC Davis research news releases

March 2019

Frederick Meyers, director of the UC Davis Center for Precision Medicine & Data Sciences and professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Hematology-Oncology, leads association that works to move innovations from the laboratory bench to the patient bedside.

UC Davis Health cardiologists are the first in the state to use a minimally-invasive system called transcatheter mitral valve replacement, or TMVR, to replace the mitral valve without the need for conventional open-heart surgery. The new technology is being tested as part of the SUMMIT study.

A major new study from the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Center has uncovered dramatic differences in the brains of Hispanics with a dementia diagnosis compared with those of non-Hispanic whites and of African Americans.

Fear of psychiatric hospitalization is one of the primary reasons that older men — an age and gender group at high risk for suicide — don’t talk about suicide with their physicians. Researchers discovered this finding as part of a pre-launch, stakeholder assessment of a multimedia program designed to encourage men to open up to their primary care providers about suicidal thoughts.

Researchers on the path to finding a cure for spina bifida have identified specific elements in stem cell secretions as key to protecting neurons and ultimately reducing the lower-limb paralysis associated with the birth defect. The team will use the results to optimize the neuroprotective qualities of a stem cell treatment they developed that improves mobility in lab animals and dogs with spina bifida.

February 2019

New England Journal of Medicine article written by UC Davis Health professors shows what they consider a disturbing trend -- the share of medical students from underrepresented groups is on the decline nationwide. But the article also highlights proven strategies at UC Davis School of Medicine for advancing equity in admissions

The Family Caregiving Institute at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis has created a support program to help caregivers with the hospital-to-community transition of family members who have dementia.

High-risk younger siblings of children with autism are less likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), have significantly lower autism symptom severity, and higher cognitive scores if their mothers take maternal prenatal vitamins during their first month of pregnancy, UC Davis research has found.

For hard-to-reach tumors at the back of the throat, robots can assist surgeons to remove cancers in a less invasive way. But this high-tech approach has a drawback: the surgeon’s inability to assess through touch whether they’ve been able to get all of the cancer out.

Endocrinologist John Yoon is working toward understanding the root causes of cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, which becomes more common for cystic fibrosis patients as they age. His research also has potential to help battle all forms of diabetes

Breakthrough research demonstrating that children with autism as young as 18 months can vastly improve their language, cognition and social skills with an early intervention developed by UC Davis Professor Sally Rogers has been replicated in a major new study.

A research study co-authored by UC Davis Health physicians Jonathan Ducore and Adam Giermasz, co-directors of the UC Davis Health Hemophilia Treatment Center has received a national “Top Ten” award by the Clinical Research Forum.

Researchers at MIND Institute at UC Davis and Rush University Medical Center have found that mavoglurant, an experimental drug known as an mGluR5 negative modulator, can positively modify a key characteristic behavior in individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS).

When chemotherapy kills cancer cells, the debris of dead and dying cells can lead to inflammation and the surge of more cancerous cells. Newly published research on ovarian cancer, involving an anti-inflammatory compound developed in the Bruce Hammock lab at UC Davis, and tested at Harvard Medical School on mouse models, indicates that the compound not only suppresses inflammation but reduces cancer growth, acting as a “surge protector.”

December 2018

When both of Brittany Dugger’s grandmothers were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it left a lasting impression and desire to better understand how the same clinical diagnosis could produce different symptoms. Now a new grant will help across multiple UC campuses.

Hundreds of new genes linked to blindness and other vision disorders have been identified in a screen of mouse strains. Many of these genes are likely important in human eye vision and the results could help identify new causes of hereditary blindness in patients

Researchers from UC Davis Health recently partnered with Amgen Inc. on two projects to better understand the decision-making processes and educational needs of patients, providers and family caregivers to develop solutions that meet the needs of people facing serious illness.

Later-born siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at elevated risk for both disorders, a new study led by Meghan Miller, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and at the UC Davis MIND Institute, has concluded. The findings appear today in JAMA Pediatrics.

UC Davis Health researchers have been awarded $5.2 million over four years from the National Institutes of Health to develop the first computerized model of the relationship between the nervous system and cardiovascular disease. The tool is expected to lead to new understanding of conditions such as hypertension, arrhythmia, heart failure and stroke, along with how those conditions change in response to treatment.

Of the three states that recently expanded comprehensive background check (CBC) policies to include all gun transfers, including those among private parties, only Delaware showed an overall increase in firearm background checks. Washington and Colorado had no changes, which the study authors say suggests that compliance and enforcement were incomplete.

UC Davis scientist Julie Sutcliffe and surgical oncologist Richard Bold have been awarded a $1 million “New Therapies Challenge” grant from the Pancreatic Cancer Collective in an effort to improve survival for people with the disease.

The Clinical Studies website is a resource for those who may be interested in participating in research studies at UC Davis Health. Easy-to-understand language, sharing options and online sign ups among the popular features.

Megan Dennis of the UC Davis MIND Institute and Genome Center is the recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award to study genes unique to humans that may contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders including autism.

Better, more precise care for military personnel and civilians who suffer traumatic brain injury along with burns or other forms of trauma is in the work thanks to a new grant from Department of Defense that's been awarded toresearchers and clinical care specialists at UC Davis Health.

September 2018

New studies from UC Davis Health are among the first to associate fractures with systemic bone loss. They also begin the path to finding treatments that preserve long-term skeletal health and reduce susceptibility to additional fractures and, potentially, osteoporosis.

Investigators at the UC Davis MIND Institute and NeuroPointDX, a division of Stemina Biomarker Discovery, have identified a group of blood metabolites that could help detect some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Part of the Children’s Autism Metabolome Project (CAMP), the largest metabolomic ASD study ever attempted, these findings are a key step toward developing an ASD biomarker test. The research was published September 6 in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

UCFC, the firearm research center funded with an appropriation from the state in 2016 and housed within the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, aims to catalyze research, awarding grants of up to $10,000.

August 2018

A comprehensive analysis of eight clinical trials and four cohort studies on cervical cancer screening by researchers from UC Davis and Kaiser Permanente Northwest has found that while Pap smears are still highly effective for detecting pre-cancerous cells and cancer, testing for the virus that causes these cancers also is an excellent screening tool.

Better treatments and improved screening programs that detect cancer at earlier stages led to an overall 12 percent improvement in cancer survival in California, according to a new report from the UC Davis Institute for Population Health Improvement.

Oanh Meyer’s mother Anh Le, arrived in the United States in 1975 as a Vietnam War refugee just a few days before the fall of Saigon. And while she settled in America and raised a family, the trauma of living in war-torn Vietnam throughout the conflict took a toll on her.

Researchers at UC Davis, Genentech and Foundation Medicine are the first to show that a blood-based test to assess tumor mutational burden (TMB) accurately identifies non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who could benefit from immunotherapies called checkpoint inhibitors. The blood test offers a much less invasive and more repeatable alternative to tissue testing. The study was published online today in Nature Medicine.

Research reported this week by UC Davis Health Professor Rachel Whitmer showed correlations between a dementia diagnosis in women and number of children, number of miscarriages, age at the time of first menstrual period, age at the start of natural menopause and total reproductive years. “The story of estrogen and the brain is just beginning," Whitmer said.

Justin Oldham, a specialist in the genetics and treatment of interstitial lung disease, has been awarded a CHEST Foundation research grant to study bloodstream biomarkers that can help predict therapeutic outcomes for patients with different types of pulmonary fibrosis.

The MIND Institute's study of early social skills of infants and toddlers is just one of the ongoing clinical studies volunteers and patients can find on the new Study Pages website, a resource for healthy volunteers, patients and clinical investigators.

New UC Davis Health research shows that medical school graduates who attended community college are more likely to select family medicine for their residency training and to be from groups traditionally underrepresented in medicine. “If we want to expand the primary care workforce together with culturally competent care, we need to focus more on community college as an important pathway to medical school,” said lead author Efrain Talamantes.

Using catheter-based ablation instead of medications alone reduces the risks of death and stroke in patients with the common form of heart arrhythmia known as atrial fibrillation, or AFib, new research from UC Davis physicians shows.

Researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute have created a mouse model for maternal antibody-related (MAR) autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that closely mimics the physiology and behaviors seen in people with this form of ASD. People with MAR ASD have been exposed to maternal autoantibodies, which can react with fetal brain tissue.

Victims of crimes committed with firearms suffer greater distress compared to victims of crimes involving other weapons or no weapons at all. As such, persons victimized with a firearm may require special attention with regard to their emotional well-being. Findings from a brief research report by researchers at the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

For decades, clinicians have worried that giving too much intravenous fluid to children with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) may contribute to brain swelling and injury, and even death. Now, after a national study that examined more than a thousand patients with DKA, UC Davis researchers and their colleagues from around the country have shown that fluid infusion does not cause brain injury in children with DKA.

The entertainment provided by televised sporting events has a significant effect on crime in Chicago, reducing the number of violent, property and drug crime reports by as much as 25 percent during the hours of a given game, according to a study by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. The study published in the Journal of Sports Economics in May.

As a freshman, Sid Ganesh had just finished a class and found herself late to an internship and career fair on campus. At the fair, Ganesh hurried from table to table, collecting flyers for each program and opportunity. She then saw the EMRAP display.

May 2018

Richard Levenson, professor and vice chair for strategic technologies in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine, has been selected Innovator of the Year for the development of Microscopy with Ultraviolet Surface Excitation, or MUSE -- a technology that obtains high-resolution images of biological tissue specimens without first requiring the time-consuming preparation of thin sections mounted on glass slides.

An exhaustive review by UC Davis researchers of more than 60 studies is the basis for new national recommendations about prostate cancer screening. The review and the findings were published May 8 in JAMA.

A new study focused on households with asthmatic children finds that the use of high-efficiency filtration, either as part of a central air system or standalone air cleaner, improves indoor air quality. The study also found that while participants did not report reduced asthma symptoms, they did have fewer visits to doctor’s offices and hospitals for asthma care.

The All of Us Research Program officially opens for enrollment Sunday, May 6. Led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), All of Us is an unprecedented effort to gather genetic, biological, environmental, health and lifestyle data from 1 million or more volunteer participants living in the U.S. A major component of the federal Precision Medicine Initiative, the program’s ultimate goal is to accelerate research and improve health.

April 2018

A common drug for treating epileptic seizures can lead to birth defects if used during pregnancy by interfering with glutamate signaling in earliest stages of nervous system development, a study by UC Davis School of Medicine researchers has found.

Research byJanine LaSalle, professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, the UC Davis Genome Center and MIND Institute, was published today in Nature Communications. LaSalle describes her work and the importance of the research below:

A study of firearm deaths in California from 2000-2015 by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) has found that firearm homicides were largely an urban problem at the start of the study period, however, falling rates in urban counties resulted in more rural areas in the central part of the state having the highest rates of firearm homicide by 2015. It also found firearm suicides in California increased slightly since the mid-2000s, were three times higher in rural counties and were highest among whites.

Researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute have found that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have reduced immune system regulation, as well as shifts in their gut microbiota. The immune deregulation appears to facilitate increased inflammation and may be linked to the gastrointestinal issues so often experienced by children with ASD. The research was published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

A study of firearm homicide and suicide rates in the 10 years after two states repealed their comprehensive background check laws in 1998 found no change in the rates of either cause of death from firearms through 2008. The repeals eliminated background check requirements for private-party transfers, but not for firearm transfers from licensed dealers.